Mobile Payments

GrabPay Inks Thailand Partnership with Kasikorn Bank — Cements Presence in All 6 ASEAN Countries

Grab is ramping up its fintech ambitions, the company announced today that they have secured a strategic partnership with Kasikorn Bank, a major banking group in Thailand.

In this partnership both parties will jointly introduce a co-branded mobile wallet dubbed “GrabPay by Kbank” and a suite of other financial solutions in Thailand.

This marks Grab Financial’s expansion to all 6 ASEAN countries namely — Singapore, Malaysia Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand.

While Grab Financial’s GrabPay has been making rapid expansions, they have also experienced some difficulties in countries like Vietnam, where a regulatory issue which disallows mobile wallet top-up through credit cards left the Vietnamese users disatisfied.

The mobile wallet is slated to be launched in early 2019, much like other countries in which GrabPay operates, the app allows for customers to pay for transport and delivery services, peer to peer transactions, online purchases and QR code payments to offline merchants.

With the national e-payments scheme PromptPay firmly in place, all QR enabled merchants in Thailand will able to immediately accept GrabPay by Kbank when it launches in 2019

Beyond the wallet, features from KBank’s “K PLUS” app and the Grab app will be integrated across both apps starting in 2019. This will enable users to benefit from seamless services across the KBank and Grab ecosystem.

The partnership comes with a strategic investment from KBank in Grab, and is part of Grab’s ongoing fundraising round, which includes Toyota Motor Corporation, Microsoft Corp., Booking Holdings, Hyundai Motor Group, Oppenheimer Funds, and other leading global investors.

The investment is a first for KBank in an international company with a core business outside of Thailand, calling to attention the size of the opportunity Grab’s ASEAN-wide user base offers, even to leading financial institutions.